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Al Rashediah StudAn interview with Mr Rashed A.Rahman Al Jasmi

by Simone Leo

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Did your love for horses come from a family tradition?

- It goes without saying that that the Arabian horse had already been a part of almost everyone’s life on the Arabian Peninsula. The Arabian horse is deeply rooted in our heritage. We can all recall a moment when our ancestors relied on them so much for the fate of their survival. The Arabians were needed for both there fight and flight instinct.

But when it comes to my family and how the horse has trotted into our lives, it’s like many who alre-ady had this wonderful creature around them. Since my father was a child he had this calling to the horses that he couldn’t resist, he would go as often as possible at least once a week with my father, or his uncle to learn about horses. As my father’s responsibility grew in business and family, he was not able to devote time for his passion for horses until later in his life and eventually he was able to return to the calling of the horses being in his heart. He opened his racehorse stud, in Bahrain, years before Al Rashediah Stud was even established.

When I was a young child, I always had a love towards animals. I would try to know all that I could of every species on the planet as I was growing in. I would even try to sneak in any animal I was able go get my hands on. My parents were often worried as to what animal I snuck into my room every evening and worried that I was too fearless towards approaching any animal without fear.

Before I had fallen deeply in love with the horse, I had a deep love towards dogs. I wanted to know every breed there was and out of all of them the Saluki called for me. Since the young age of 11 I strived to improve the quality of my dogs, so I could go and participate in the hunting sports with my own breed. At one point I had 50+ dogs and I had been taking care of the dog’s basic care and delivering their litters.

Oil on canvas from Mary Haggard

But by the age of 12, I consistently had horses in my life. I would attend the races and our horses participated in almost every weekend during the race season. It was my desire to always be by my fathers side and always be there to support him with his racehorses because I saw the happiness he had radiated when he was with the horses.

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Nadirah Al Rashediah at Egyptian Event, Silver Medal Champion

Rashed, and his fatherMr. A. Rahman Al Jasmi

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Sadly I never felt my true connection with those horses back then until our first Arabian horses arrived to Bahrain. Two weeks after they had come, I had to deliver my first foal and I fell in love and what the true meaning of love was. The foal’s mother had issues allowing her filly to feed, so I had to give the filly bottles every day until she got old enough to start eating on her own. But then it was that time of year where I had to return back to school and spring break has come to an end. It was clearly seen by the grooms that the filly wouldn’t eat and would have her head down wallowing in her own sadness, as the vet clearly said she was healthy but upset. That made me feel the guilt every single day, as she needed to be weaned from me. After not seeing her for a month, I had finally returned to Bahrain, eager to be with her. The moment the filly saw me she ran towards me with a beautiful sadness in her eyes, mirroring the exact guilt and love I had during the past 30 days we had been apart. Her big glossy eyes teared, causing me to start tearing up, clearly indicating we were one alike. Samaa meaning “sky” in Arabic is what the filly’s name is and truly she was the sky above me. What touched me even more was after a month later, she would resist being taken out of the field, unless she had me to lead the way. She would follow me without a halter, knowing she was in safe hands.

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Samaa Al RashediahNk Qaswarah x Sallamah Ezzain By Norredine Ezzain & Rashed Al Jasmi

What attracted you to the Straight Egyptians originally?

Breeding the straight Egyptian horse with its closed gene pool and few numbers has more boundaries. More limits and harder to do than breeding other lines of Arabians. It is a challenge. It isn’t something anybody can do like a flip of a coin or a magic trick. You have to study to breed the best horse pos-sible. Thanks to my father who encouraged me to express myself, he gave me the opportunity to en-courage the need for change in our industry, especially in our region, I was able to go look at all the Straight Egyptian horses from different breeders and from multiple countries. This made me realize that most of the horses I saw basically possessed the same characteristics and look and was lacking in diversity. From my perspective it seemed everyone was breeding the same type and using the samebloodlines. Hence justifying my choice to use ZT Faa’iq as our head sire. To benefit from finally outcrossing the SE blood. He had won the Reserve World Champion at a young age, like his daughters Nadirah Al Rashediah whom won the SE World Championship; as well Mabrouka Al Rashediah.Nadeer Al Rashediah, his son, won the Bahrain National Championships 4 times.

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Zt Faa’iqAnaza El Farid X Zt Jamdusah By Jamil

Nadirah Al RashediahZT FAA’IQ x NK NAEEMA by NK HAFID JAMIL

Nadeer al RashediahZT FAA’IQ x NK NADINE by NK NADEER

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What made you choose Straight Egyptian Arabians over other breeds?

When my dad had racehorses, they would be easily spooked and would run away. I tried to scare my first Arabian mare Samaa, just to see her reaction, as I was still a little kid and was curious if she would do the same. She came back to me and looked me in the eye and I saw me reflected as an equal as if looking into a mirror.

Do you think there is a difference in showing between how it is today and how it was 5yrs ago?

Yes, it is. You don’t see many Straight Egyptians at the shows. Now we have been divided into two different classes and shows. We at Al Rashediah Stud like to breed horses that can compete in all classes. Nowadays Egyptian horses can’t show in classes against all the other Arabians the times like when Imperial Imdal won. Nevertheless we had proven that we can compete in an open show like they used to do.


Naseem al RashediahAL ADEED AL SHAQAB x NABAWEYAH EZZAIN by ANSATA ALMURTAJIZ

What will the show scene look like 5 years from now?

It will still be the same in the sense that the politics and different aspects will still affect the choice of the winner such as the owner or handler of the horse, unless we strive to make a change.

It’s like Rene Descartes once said: “In order to determine whether we can know anything with cer-tainty, we first have to doubt everything we know.”

Today’s industry is now welcoming the importance of using SE stallions and mares as an outcross in their breeding programs. Many straight Egyptian mares are producing excellent offspring both within the straight Egyptian bloodlines as well as with purebred Arabian horses, something unique to only SE mares. As I always had expected the SE breed shall prevail. That’s what I’m striving to accom-plish as much as possible, to finally witness this enormous triumph for the Straight Egyptian breed. Leading the shift of the power dynamics at the show ring, Inshallah. To have multiple horses com-peting either partly or fully Egyptian, as in the 90’s this has all happened before. This monumental improvement in the Arabian horse breed, when the great Anaza Al Farid was carefully selected to be crossed with a mare we all know today as Kajora, who foaled a bay colt. Who impacted the Arabian horse world, named Gazal Al Shaqab, who was bred by Al Shaqab Stud in Qatar. Gazal, who is the sire of the renowned Marwan Al Shaqab. Where stallions, such as the multiple Marwan al Shaqab sons, that followed his path in the show ring leading them to the world championships in Paris or any progeny from the renown “champion maker”Returning to the question... In 5 years, we all wishfully hope for positive improvements in the show ring, specially ethically and morally, that will evolve and strive towards a less bias, corrupt competi-tion. Eventually making it an even playfield for straight and purebred Arabians horses alike based on their individual qualities rather than who they are owned or shown by.

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Palermo ATNaseem Al Rashediah x Penelope KA by QR Marc

RJ VoldemortNaseem Al Rashediah x RJ Nova

by AJMAN MONISCIONE

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Hence my expectations in the show ring will be having several of Naseem Al Rashediah’s progeny competing. I’m positive that it will change the dynamics at the show. Therefore giving the SE breed another chance to “ascend” to where they once were. And you never know, maybe even more. As I don’t believe SE horses have a limit or extent which they can’t overcome; As I like to call it the “SE last ceiling”.

What is your favorite horse you own or bred?

As any loving parent would say: “I love all my children equally”. However, there are 2 horses that have entered my life that had left me think of them before going to sleep and are the first two whom I’d wake up thinking about. Eager to go wish them a Good morning, before I headed to school. One was named Farid Nile Dream; I would have spent every night with her if I could and eventually fall asleep by her side.


The other is ZT Faa’iq, his name is already well known and his successes in the show ring as a SE, globally. He had a reputation of his beha-vior being too aggressive and untamable. Ho-wever, knowing this didn’t stop me from falling in love the moment I first laid eyes on him. Like Faa’iq I often felt misunderstood, but we became best friends and it became evident to all that saw us together that actually the truth is “Faa’iq is a sweetheart” behind his fierce look”

filly bred and owned by Al Nasser StudNaseem Al Rashediah x Al Jazi Al Nasser

fillyNAHALA ONaseem Al Rashediah x Nowara S Glambred by Sweden Arabian Stud and owned by Hanaya stud

fillyGJ Amira Deenaa

Naseem Al Rashediah x Pashmina

bred and owned by Glenn Jacobs

NABAWEYAH EZZAINANSATA ALMURTAJIZ x NK NAKEEBYA by NK HAFID JAMILWith Rashed

coltShlasha Al Rashediah

Naseem al Rashediah x Sherifa al Gabrybred and owned by Al Rashediah Stud

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But the favorite horse I’ve bred is Samaa al Rashe-diah. It goes without saying that I could be nothing than less proud of being the breeder of my special boy, Naseem Al Rashediah. Firstly, because, as the Straight Egyptian often if not, almost always, look similar to one another, he is the opposite in every way. He is very much the best of his mother and he best of his father, which where outcrossed to blo-odlines that would typically not be mixed.

painting by Peter Upton

Farid Nile DreamFARID NILE MOON x IMPERIAL MAYSAMA by IMPERIAL MADHEEN

ZT FAA’IQANAZA EL FARID x ZT JAMDUSAH by JAMILat the age of 22 years old.

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Do you enjoy sharing your knowledge about horses?

There isn’t a breeder that I have ever came across that wouldn’t share his breeding philosophy and justifying it by plain clear facts that you can’t avoid, especially in the Straight Egyptian world. That is their Pedigrees, their families, dam line, and strain. All different categories and criteria.

Every breeder has their own dance routine that identifies to who they had been and how they came to be now, and what move they should anticipate doing, just as how vital ever note played on every in-strument in a symphony must be perfect, or the entire orchestra falls into their own demise. Breeding SE horses is very much a creative endeavor full of harmony and beauty as its goal.

With good friends, from left to right:

Achim Dirnhofer from Birkhof Stud, Germany, our dear friend and director of Al Rashediah Stud: Ms Eileen Verdieck, Rashed Al Jasmi and Maya Jones from Al Jabal Arabians, Switzerlandat the Straight Egyptian event Europe Gala 2019

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As I said many people love sharing their breeding programs objectives and success. But the truth is in today’s world many breeders don’t want to hear someone else’s opinion on their own horses. Many are too high on their horses ironically to want to hear another breeder no matter how good of friends they are. But we all know what they end up doing just nodding along even though they asked for your opinion; and most likely are not interested in taking it into consideration.Even though I just mentioned a few negative remarks about people sharing their knowledge to one and another, I have recently met some breeders that are open minded and welcomed outside opinions. But two had surprised me completely, as I was enjoying the presentation they have done, they directly asked me straight away, what I thought of the horse, and of course respectfully I gave him my positive thoughts only. And they stopped me half way as I was answering and said tell me the “negatives” or what I thought should be improved and how I would breed the horses. It was so refreshing, and it made me feel hopeful for the future of breeding the SE horse.This is mind blowing to me, a week later I saw them again where I found out they had already began using some of my suggestions on breeding their mares.I was astonished by theses breeders, who have been in the industry longer than I have, and had Establi-shed their breeding programs decades before mine, which Ideologies that I know by heart since I have been a kid, and I had respected their philosophies for years and tired to find a way to integrate the best parts of each program to create my own.This is a clear indication that change had already begun, the change is now. Because I believe a true bree-der should criticize their own horses more than anyone else. Also it is so critical to know the road that one is traveling on with a breeding program and where it might lead and what steps one must take to not only arrive at ones destination but where to go from there. As breeding SE horses is definitely based on the journey not the destination as with being successful at anything in life one cannot just rest on their laurels, as they will soon be left behind. With so many fol-lowing down the same path in the SE world focusing mostly on breeding for one of two traits instead of the whole horse and using only a few select bloodlines. Breeders of today and the future will be deprived of the diversity of bloodlines and conformation to be able to make the changes that will be needed in the future. There should be a strong concern of all breeders of the Arabian horse and in particular the SE horse that if the breeders do not be careful and protect bloodlines and conformational characteristics that are currently not in vogue or disappearing. After taking their own lead into the dark there is a very strong

chance that they will not be able to find their way back, literally and figuratively.I’m not stating it’s not a possibility to come back to being able to breed a beautiful charismatic horse that also possess the confor-mational structure that is necessary to create a healthy and useful animal, but it will take them at least double the time it took to get back to where they started. By the time the rest of the breed in the industry would have already improved in several different ways.Where there is nowhere else then ascending to prove this Straight Egyptian breed that is not something you can overlook, especially with the new team at Al Rashediah, which we all independently thrive with our own emotions towards the love for the breed. But even more the love towards the herd at Al Rashediah who shall not be overlooked any longer.

Naseem Al Rashediah

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Al Rashediah Stud780 Rd No6124, Janabiyah, Bahrain

With great experienced supervision of the manager Mr. Frank Boetto ( middle ), and by his (right ) side, both figuratively and physically, Mr. Chris van Schalkwijk, our on site trainer and maintenance manager of the entire farm, and standing on the left is Ms. Christina Doornberg our dedicated barn manager and foal caretaker.And it goes without saying, without this ideal and significant member, Ms. Eileen Verdieck, the motivated director of Al Rashediah, who has glued this entire team together thriving towards one united front.

Mr. Franck BoettoGeneral Manager+973 6693 3839+39 [email protected]

Ms. Eileen VerdieckDirector

+973 36891849+1 720 369 0640

[email protected]

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